Open ROV By Connor Donovan

What is an OpenROV? OpenROV is an open-source, low-cost underwater robot for exploration and education. It's also a passionate community of professional and amateur ocean explorers and technologists. OpenROV gives both professional and amateur underwater explorers the power to dive and explore depths of up to 100 meters without even having to get their feet wet.

Who Invented This Technology? Why? A man by the name of David Lang invented the original OpenROV robot out of parts he had laying in his garage in California. He wanted to create a low cost, accessible exploration device that anyone could use. Thus the OpenROV was born. <- David Lang showing off the latest version of the OprnROV.

Some Things You Should Know About the OpenROV When driving the ROV on a moderate power setting, you get 2 hours or more of battery life so you can capture lots of footage before coming to the surface. You can drive the ROV with a gamepad. Exploration is literally at your fingertips! The source code as well as the hardware design are open and extensible. The modifications and additions you can make to your own OpenRov are limitless. The OpenRov is purchasable fully assembled or as a kit you can build on your own.

The OpenRov features 3 main thrusters, one on the left and right sides located on the back to navigate forwards and backwards and left and right and one located on top to move up and down. There are also two battery tubes along with one main tube which houses the camera and all of the ROV’s electronics. There are also lights located on the ROV’s main dashboard on each side of the main camera. This helps get clearer video footage in murky or dark water. View of the ROV’s thrusters. View of the ROV’s 3 main tubes and camera. ROV with its lights turned on.

My Experience with the OpenROV This past fall myself along with my fellow classmates were given the opportunity to work with our very own OpenROV robot. We troubleshooted many problems we had with our ROV and also made many of out own modifications such as attaching the Go Pro camera to the top and using weights to balance out the weight of the ROV. Although we never got to have any dives out in the field, we did manage to have two successful dives in the MVHS. One thing I wish we had of been able to accomplish with the ROV is being able to get the gamepad to work. Overall the OpenROV was a great project and I would love to have the opportunity to use one in the field!